Dark Into Light
by sparkstoaflame
Summary: NS/slight-DT/Megaforce. After they defeated Lothor, the three Wind Rangers could not have been closer. But in the midst of an ongoing battle with a clan of dark ninjas, the death of a dear friend causes their friendship to fray and then irreparably snap—to the point when one of their number is banished from the Wind Academy...forever. (Eventual Tori/Blake.)
1. Atlas

**author's note **| the old power ranger seasons are so much better than the crap airing right now. they should just rerun all seasons of mmpr, in space, ninja storm, dino thunder, rpm, and bring back tori because she's such a bamf in _everything_ (lol jk) and be done with it. and yes i mooched the title off from that legend of korra game shut up ;_;

* * *

**Dark Into Light**

_Canon. Takes place Megaforce-era–ish._

**NS/slight DT.** | After they defeated Lothor, the three Wind Rangers could not have been closer. But in the midst of an ongoing battle with a clan of dark ninjas, the death of a dear friend causes their friendship to fray and then irreparably snap—to the point when one of their number is banished from the Wind Academy...forever.

Tori/Blake.

* * *

_cover image credit to_ **codedzer0**

* * *

_(carry your world, i'll carry your world)_

prologue**  
atlas**

.

.

He stumbles towards her, his voice garbled and almost inarticulate as he babbles madly away, clawing at her black sleeves.

"N-no—Tori, get Cam—_get him out of the goddamned way!"_

Wide blue eyes blink in alarm while long blonde locks spin through the air, their owner trying to disengage herself from a ragged figure dressed in black clothes. "What are you _talking_ abo—"

A wet and thoroughly nauseating _ripping_ sound cuts through the air.

One primal snarl and an anguished wail cut short later, Tori Hanson is attempting to not trip over her own shaking feet as she turns away to promptly empties her stomach of their contents.

Through a mouthful of bile, she splutters incoherently, _"Holyfuckwhatjusthappened."_

.

.

"There was no army."

"What?"

"What do you mean, 'what'?" she snaps back in disgust and maybe there's a little bit of frustration there, too. "We had no chance; we had one ninja to their every ten."

There's a heavy pause as the black-haired man sitting opposite to her narrows his eyes in disbelief.

Her eyes flash at the pointed look he's giving her. "And...I suppose that this is all _my_ fault?"

"Damn straight."

Her lips twist into a gruesome approximation of a pained smile that's more of a grimace than anything. "But it's not."

The man sitting across from her smiles back, his eyelids hooded. "That's what they all say, Tor."

And her eyes widen at the promised implication behind the words. "Shane, you can't do that—"

He silences her with a withering look. "What 'can't' I do?"

The unspoken word hangs in the air between them before Tori stands up so violently that her chair skids back six feet and probably would have gone another few lengths more had the wall not been there to obstruct its path.

Dustin, whose warm chocolate brown eyes are flicking back and forth from both of his best friends, nervously tries to mediate. "Dudes, maybe we shouldn't be—"

Tori's lip curls in distaste as she meets Shane's smoldering glare.

"...Go to hell."

.

.

She doesn't know when it starts, but by this point there are rumors flying around all four corners of the Academy and very nasty looks are being thrown towards her from every direction imaginable.

Dustin tries to comfort her, to turn her away from all these disgusting accusations spilling out of nameless mouths.

"It's okay, Tor. You did nothing wrong. I won't let anything happen, I promise."

She stares back at him with a blank and sad blue gawk, and they taunt without words, _I have no one left who loves me._

Dustin's jaw tightens as a short Asian man hurries by them, who shoots the water ninja a patronizing look before carefully averting his gaze. Two girls, one of them dark-haired and the other a blonde so similar to the water ninja standing next to him that he has to blink twice, trail after the thunder ninja slowly; respectively they are dressed in the colors of navy and cerulean.

The latter girl's light blue eyes flick to the duo standing to the side of the path, and Tori can catch a glimpse of a sea of betrayal and hurt swimming in them before the girl pointedly looks away to scamper after her father.

Dustin's hand gets tighter and tighter on her shoulder until the black fabric encased in his grip has gotten hopelessly crimped and wrinkled.

To her credit, Tori somehow manages to not break out into a fit of hysteria-induced giggles.

.

.

Her carefully constructed stone wall exterior promptly falls into quite a few dusty pieces at the funeral.

.

.

She tries to retain control over her emotions when in public but that sure as hell doesn't happen when her head is half-buried into an abrasive pillow that is her crossed arms and she's sitting on a bed of red-orange autumn leaves below an old maple tree near the waterfall and she's simply bawling her eyes out like a baby.

The difference is that where the baby has a mother who loves him, she has only the whispers on the wind to comfort her.

.

.

_"We're kind of like kindred spirits, you know."_

_Yeah...fuck you, Blake._

She lets out a choked, half-insane burst of involuntary laughter as she breaks the seal on the top of a bottle of 151.

.

.

When Dustin finds her, she's nursing her third bottle of rum and has jumped off the deep end and into the realm that consists of hopeless drunks.

.

.

Dustin loses it and slaps him right across the face.

"You're killing her, can't you see that?" the normally happy-go-lucky earth ninja sharply points out in the middle of the common green. "Dude, listen to me. I get that you're hurting—we all get it—but you can't heap all the blame for Cam's death onto one person."

The air ninja's eyelid twitches in turn. "She was the only one who was close enough to save him."

"So, what?"

"So it's her fault that he's dead."

An ugly pause fills the air before Shane speaks up again, and this time, his voice is fractured and broken and simply _frustrated_.

"...You didn't see they way he died, Dustin."

.

.

A scroll is being slowly crushed into bits in her unrelenting, shaking grip, the sound of crackling paper the only sound in the still and overly stagnant air. She can feel numerous pairs of hostile eyes on her, and she slowly turns to face the bringer of what she sees as the end of everything she had ever known in her entire life.

In a low and deadly voice, even though she had been half-expecting it these past few days, she manages to hiss out, "I'm _what?"_

* * *

**end notes** | welp. ._. i'm really sorry for killing cam, but he has to die for this story to go on.


	2. Rise

**author's note** | aggggghhh i've recently been reinfected with toriphilia. (yep, totally not cheating on you, korra ._.) you will not believe how pissed i am that sally martin didn't get a callback for the legend war...and yes, megaforce makes a cameo appearance in this chapter and will become somewhat-main characters later on...for continuity purposes.

* * *

**Dark Into Light**

_Canon. Takes place Megaforce-era–ish._

**NS/slight DT/Megaforce.** | After they defeated Lothor, the three Wind Rangers could not have been closer. But in the midst of an ongoing battle with a clan of dark ninjas, the death of a dear friend causes their friendship to fray and then irreparably snap—to the point when one of their number is banished from the Wind Academy...forever.

Tori/Blake.

* * *

_(burning black holes in dark memories)_

**rise**

.

.

_(two weeks later)_

.

.

Kylee Ibaraki is a bitch of a sensei and Dustin hadn't the faintest idea why Tori chose that crazy girl as her successor before taking off to someplace she vaguely mentioned as a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, otherwise known as the Last Frontier: Alaska.

Yeah, Kylee's a great water ninja and all, but goddammit, _she doesn't know how to teach more than she knows how to yell her ass off._

.

.

Tori's bitterly thinking while camping out in a forest that _Tally deserved the position instead of Kylee_.

Well, in her own defense, it's not as if she had a choice.

.

.

Kira Ford stares at her cellphone in disbelief and almost drops it onto the floor.

"She's _what."_

_"Uh. Banished. I think she's in Alaska."_

"She's in _Alaska?!"_

_"..."_

"Stop shitting me, Dustin! This isn't funny!"

_"What? Dude, I'm not—"_

The former Yellow Dino Ranger hangs up on the earth ninja and collapses onto a couch.

.

.

_(one month later)_

.

.

"What's your name?"

"..."

"You have five seconds before I decide I want to fry your face into sausage links for Kodiak."

"Kodiak? Who's Kodiak? And sausage links? What kind of comparison is that?"

"He's a _wolf,_ you ass."

"...I'm A'akuluujjusi."

Thick, dark black eyebrows draw together in suspicion and slight anger over a pair of brilliant blue eyes. "I would prefer if you _not_ insult my people, thank you very much, by calling yourself the Creator Mother."

"I'm sorry." It's said sincerely.

The girl tuts loudly. "Nevertheless, it's rather impressive that you actually _pronounced_ that correctly, much less knew about it, but you don't look _remotely_ Inuit."

A small smile of acknowledgement. Then:

"Maybe that's because I'm not." She casually sizes the dark-skinned girl up and decides that she looks trustworthy enough. "And my name is Tori."

.

.

Blake Bradley shoves a cardboard box full of photos into the corner of his closet and tries not to cry.

.

.

"So, Tori," the girl conversationally asks, "what brings you to this forest on such a lovely day?"

At the current moment, it's raining buckets.

Tori irritably flicks her sopping wet hair off of the nape of her neck. "I could ask the same for you."

"Well, the difference between you and me is that I know what I'm doing in this forest, whereas you're probably just...passing though." She smiles wolfishly. "Furthermore, you're dressed in a rough approximation of an outfit design that the ninja academies down south generally use, I'm guessing River or Wind, so...are you here to do a peace talk or some other shit like that? They should have told you that storm ninjas don't do damned peace talks_._ Our address is 38 Middle of Nowhere Drive for a reason, sweetie."

"...Don't call me sweetie. Can I talk to your head sensei?"

The girl grins even wider, although her brilliant blue eyes narrow ever so slightly. "You've been talking to her, you ass."

"..."

"Yes. Yes, you'll do, I think." She clicks her fingers before turning around. "Come on, buttface, I'll take you to our grounds."

"'Buttface'?" Tori asks, aghast.

"Hmm, very well. Mushy buttface it is."

.

.

Callie fucking _hates_ broomsticks and water-filled buckets.

"Arms straight, chin up, and _legs bent!"_ Sensei Ibaraki barks, her thin black eyebrows drawn together into a no-nonsense expression. The water ninja is only twenty and has been teaching for only a month and she's already harsher than the previous sensei had ever been.

That being said, Callie doesn't miss her mother _one fucking bit._

All in a day's delusions of a teenage ninja, after all.

.

.

Fifteen-year-old girls don't cry over their mommies.

It's what Jen keeps on telling herself anyways, but she can't stop the tears from coming.

.

.

_(six months later)_

.

.

Sensei Aglakti, as Tori has learned over the past few months, has eyes a shade of blue so bright that Tori thinks that they _have_ to be contact lenses, loves Kodiak the gray wolf to death, and hates formalities more than she hates Brussel sprouts and insists that everyone call her Kala without any of the honorifics.

The water ninja has taken to calling the native Alaskan "Sensei" anyways nine times out of ten, partly from sheer habit and partly for her own amusement.

Unfortunately, the fire ninja is also uncannily introspective for such a hothead.

.

.

"I _hate_ Sensei Ibaraki." Callie's lower lip is jutting out in a pout, her eyes narrowed into tiny slits and arms crossed firmly over her chest.

Jen's pencil makes a scratching sound as the graphite tip scrawls messily over a piece of loose leaf paper, the girl herself bent over a small wooden desk in concentration as she works out the arithmetic problem. "Oh? What's wrong?"

"She has a problem!" the blonde cries out in frustration, flinging her hands up into the air. "It's like she thinks we're _robots_, and goddammit, the workload is huge! _Huuuuuge!"_

"Jesus, Callie, stop bawling!"

"And she's making us learn the theory behind water manipulation, even though we don't have to learn that unless we want to go for a master ranking, and it's worse than math class—"

"You _weirdo_. What's so bad about math?" Jen frowns as she tops off her complex-looking answer with a bunch of symbols that just seem like meaningless Greek squiggles to Callie.

"How can you be calling me a weirdo when you like math?"

"You're right. Biochem is better."

"...I'll rant to someone else."

Jen rolls her eyes as her little sister stomps out of the room.

.

.

_(one year later)_

.

.

"Hey there, Sensei."

"Shut the fuck up, Tori." Pause. "You dropped something."

"Oh."

"It seems as if it's an _important_ something."

_"...Wherethehelldidyougetthatgiveitbacktome."_

"Yeah...no. You're not from fucking Kansas, are you?"

"Well,_ no."_

"This is the symbol of the Wind Academy."

"...Um."

"What happened?"

"Ka-la..."

_"Tor-ri,"_ Kala mimics in an annoyingly accurate representation. "You should know by now that that doesn't work on me, kelp for brains."

"I got banished."

Kala pauses for a moment, and a curious look passes over her expression. "...Jesus _fuck_, woman, why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Uh." Tori begins to edge away from the dangerous glint in the fire ninja's eyes. "I'll leave now."

"Oh, heeeell no." There's a fistful of black cloth in Kala's grip as she lunges forwards to grab onto Tori's arm. "You're staying with us." She releases her hold on the water ninja's sleeve to head back towards he Academy.

"I was _banished_, Sensei."

_"Stop calling me Sensei!_ And you know what, I don't give two shits about _that_. You haven't given _us_ any trouble, haven't you? That's what matters." She glances back, her gaze hooded. "And since you're from the Wind Academy...well, we would appreciate your help, anyhow."

Tori winces at her tone. "...You would?"

"Well, yes." Kala examines her pointer fingernail. "I don't suppose you've encountered a Japanese girl named Kylee Ibaraki before?"

_Oh shit._

.

.

Jen bursts into his room sobbing and the only thing Blake can do is stroke her hair and murmur platitudes that are total lies, because Tori's never coming back and he knows it.

.

.

Shane doesn't like the new water sensei _at all_ and tells himself that it's _her_ final way of spiting him.

He ignores that gnarled knot of guilt in his chest that won't go away.

.

.

Kylee is quite aware of the fact that she's almost universally hated by her fellow senseis and her students, but _she doesn't give two shits about it_.

If they didn't want to die within the decade, they would do well to _listen_ to the Japanese water ninja.

At least, it's what Tori said. Kylee doesn't even know why the raving mad lunatic does _anything_ anymore, but the woman was her teacher, and dammit, she'll listen to her superior.

It was ironic, really, she muses, almost as if it were fated to happen.

One banished wind sensei with the storm ninjas.

_Dark._

One banished storm sensei with the Winds.

_Light._

.

.

_(three years later)_

.

.

Conner McKnight glances at his friend absentmindedly strumming her guitar.

"Hey, have you heard? Tori's in Alaska because—"

The chord breaks off discordantly into an ugly set of notes as Kira drops the instrument onto the ground in frustration. "Where the _hell_ have you been the last three years? Living under a rock?"

"I was off playing soccer!"

"You were living under a rock," Kira adamantly insists.

Conner sighs. "Whatever you say, Kir."

The pop star rolls her eyes before picking the guitar off of the ground once more.

.

.

"So, have you ever played with fire before?"

"I'm a water ninja, Kala."

The fire sensei smiles. "So? What does that mean?"

"Um, it means that I don't do_ fire."_

"That's what they all say, sweetie."

"I told you to stop calling me sweetie!"

_"Mushy buttface."_ A snicker rides across Kala's lips.

"Shut up, will you..."

"Never in a million fucking years."

.

.

Jen graduates high school (as the valedictorian) and the Thunder Ninja Academy (with honored distinction) before taking off to Harvard to study biochemistry.

Frankly, Callie didn't see the fun in observing long strings of molecules and lipids and proteins, which is what her knowledge of the subject is limited to, but it's fucking _Harvard_, and who would turn down an offer to that Ivy League university?

Then again, it's always been _Jen this_ and _Jen that_ and _Jen's so perfect at everything Callie, why are you so stupid?_ and she can't help but feel hurt, but she loves her sister.

.

.

_(five years later)_

.

.

"Remember, _dispose_ of her."

"Can't we just agree to _capture_ Kylee instead?" Tori winces. "I don't like this idea of _killing_ people."

Kala's eyes glint dangerously in the soft moonlight glow. "Dark ninjas aren't _people_, buttface."

.

.

Dustin doesn't know how to break it kindly to his fellow sensei.

"Er, Shane?"

"Mmm?"

"Torisentanemailtomelastnight, shesaystotellyouthatshe's, _um,_ she'scomingback."

Shane cocks his head to one side, his thick black eyebrows drawing together above the bridge of his nose. "Uh, say that again? _Slowly, _please?"

"...No, I'm fine, dude."

.

.

Kira makes an announcement to her fellow Dino Rangers that day.

"Ninjas have got to be the most bipolar people you will ever meet."

Dr. O frowns from his desk. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah."

"...Question mark?" Ethan supplies.

"Tori's coming back from Alaska..."

The interest level in the room drops to zero after Kira's proclamation.

.

.

Gia Moran is knocked down by a random and tall blonde who blurts out a hurried "sorry" before running away so fast that the Yellow Megaforce Ranger can swear that the crazy woman has turned into a blue streak.

She wouldn't have cared about the incident one way or the other had not a troop of zombie-like figures in black robes that are _definitely_ not Loogies shuffled after the fleeing girl.

Gia being Gia, and since she's really rather bored because Vrak has been too much of a pussy to send down a monster today, she takes off after both of them.

.

.

Troy blames the Yellow Ranger's disappearance on her "girl hormones" after spitting out a few choice words and immediately pulls the Megaforce Rangers together in a search.

.

.

Tori doesn't recall getting knocked out but she wakes up in a dank cell with another pissed-off blonde inside, who immediately _freaks_ as soon as the water ninja opens a bleary eye.

_"Who the _fucking hell_ are you and why did you land both of us in here?!"_

.

.

The door to the cell opens.

_"Kala?!"_

Kodiak growls.

The storm ninja places two fingers over Tori's forehead and whispers mockingly, "Sorry, kiddo...but you'll have to do one last job for me."

.

.

Gia learns of the existence of ninjas that very day and decides she doesn't like them that much.

.

.

Tori approaches the entrance of the Wind Ninja Academy and doesn't smile.

Not one little bit.

.

.

Shane's greeting is totally awkward, Dustin squeezes the life out of his best friend, Blake hangs back, Hunter's making angry faces, and Callie motherfucking Bradley runs away in tears.

And Kylee...well, Kylee's just stoically unimpressed, because that's kind of what she does.

Then again, no one but her notices the fact that the former water sensei now has unnatural, brilliant blue eyes the color of the sea.

_Well fuck, the storm sensei is still one hell of a bitch._


End file.
